Editorial

This editorial is being written at a time when the entire world is engulfed by a Pandemic—where human life is under threat, plans are being mercilessly aborted, all others are viewed with suspicion, everyone is grappling to make sense of the ‘incomprehensible’, and where human pride has taken a considerable beating. In this context, the recent critically acclaimed South Korean film, Parasite appears to be strangely prophetic. Set against the extreme class inequalities in South Korea, the film beautifully captures the diametrically opposed worlds of two families. The story is not unique to South Korea but resonates with the concerns of people around the world, more so in India, where inequities of caste add another layer of separation, alienation and discrimination among people. Reflecting on the uncertainty of life, the protagonist in the film says: ‘You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan at all. You know why? Because life cannot be planned’. Emerging from a proletarian perspective, we can fully appreciate this sentiment when we see thousands of migrant labour walking across hundreds of miles to escape an uncertain future, made cruel by the apathy and neglect of our government and society. Although the virus is beyond caste, class or colour, it is hard not to notice the ways in which its effects are informed by social asymmetries of power and wealth.

It would also be naïve to imagine that people across class, caste, gender, age and religion would forget their differences and finally stand united in their fight against this pandemic. There is a strange but intense aggression with which enemies are being identified, responsibilities fixed and victims ostracised. This is being done by not only agencies of the state, the dominant ideological-political formations but also segments of civil society and the media. It is only in India, that the virus has been deliberately communalised and a particular religious minority is being held responsible for its spread. In a political environment filled with intense hatred, strife and unabashed divisiveness, one is constantly compelled to reflect on the kind of society we have created for ourselves. We also need to question the role played by education in promoting/questioning stereotypes and strengthening/dissipating social inequities and making us become the persons that we are. Needless to say, this cannot be understood without examining the nature of the state and its politics and the way it uses/manipulates education to fulfil its own objectives. It further urges us to reflect on the dichotomies between creating more sterile content or engaging in a socially transformative pedagogy; emphasising individual achievement/competition or celebrating cooperative learning and collective growth. Further, we also need to accord renewed importance to certain ethical universals and rethink the relationship between the state, education and people/citizens. In short, this global crisis has provided us the opportunity to reflexively engage with our life worlds and the role of education therein.

These concerns, however, are hardly new but have in fact featured as central points of discussion and reflection in several treatises and policy documents on education. It may not be completely erroneous to say that, an inner epidemic has been simmering in the form of ‘learning crisis’ in India for quite some time and yet we continue to do the exact opposite of what has been proposed: pursue a curriculum that is alienating, celebrate a pedagogy which denies the agency of both teachers and students and threaten our children to learn in order to avoid failure. One cannot ignore the complicity of the state in all this as it conveniently offers an education which is tailored to reproduce the existing inequalities in our society. COVID-19 grants us an opportunity, even if forcibly to pause, reflect and perhaps re-consider what is happening inside our schools and universities in the name of education.

Rather than using this opportunity for introspection and reflection, all we seem to be concerned about is the mode of teaching to be adopted under the present regime of social distancing, where students cannot physically access schools/colleges. As a response to this situation, our instrumental rationality has hit upon ‘online teaching’ as the solution to this pandemic which prevents face to face learning to take place. Never mind if the meaning and purpose of education, in this tearing hurry to find solutions, gets reduced to delivering a certain content with the help of technology.

This obsession with digital learning also aggravates the popular perception of pitching technology against the teacher, so much so that it is being thought of as even substituting a teacher. It has been some time now that technology has made inroads in school teachers’ lives: tablets to record school-related data, gadgets to register biometric attendance and CCTV cameras to monitor their movement. On the one hand, technology is seen as solving all problems related to non-learning of children and non-accountability of teachers while on the other, ‘passion’ in teachers is being promoted in the draft new education policy as the mantra for them to be successful. The message being sent across by the state therefore is that if teachers are motivated and passionate about their work then they should not worry about structural constraints or inadequacies in the educational system. Such a position of the state makes issues such as reasonable salary, appropriate working conditions and even good training for teachers redundant.

I would like to highlight two inter-related concerns here. Without under-estimating the emancipatory potential of education, we must also not expect education alone to bring about social change. For meaningful education to take place, facilitative processes such as a curriculum which students can connect with, a pedagogy which is inclusive, an assessment which supports students’ learning, etc., need to be in place. Equally important are factors beyond the control of the individual teacher, such as teacher–pupil ratio, service conditions and adequate infrastructure. But more importantly, education cannot remove structural inequities among people. It may enable students to question, raise their voice, protest, etc., but it cannot claim to do what the state is empowered and equipped to do. For example, a teacher cannot be expected to practice a constructivist pedagogy if there are 100–200 students in her class. Similarly, expecting children to bathe daily will not be possible if they do not have access to even basic drinking water. Moreover, it needs to be reiterated that neither technology nor teachers act autonomously but function in a certain context, where several extraneous factors impact their effectiveness. Just as a teacher needs to be trained and supported, technology needs to be used with far greater caution, sensitivity and reflection.

More often than not, it is seen that quick-fixes, cost-effective solutions in the name of alternatives are reserved for the disadvantaged sections of society, whereas it is they who need greater attention and individualised support. Most of the research articles in this issue focus on understanding ‘disadvantage’. A common thread tying them together is the recognition of diverse contexts of students and the ways in which these contexts impact both their experiences and academic performances. They reiterate that the environment which one grows in structures one’s experiences, frames one’s choices and determines opportunities and success/failure in life. Therefore, any analysis of educational achievement/performance of an individual, community, school, etc., must take cognisance of the diverse contexts in which they are situated without either glorifying, dismissing or blaming it.

Geetha Nambissan’s paper titled, ‘Caste and the Politics of the Early “Public” in Schooling: Reflections on the Dalits’ Struggle for an Equitable Education’ is particularly interesting and relevant in today’s context. She cautions the reader to not simplistically regard all public schools as being democratic and inclusive. She shows that even publicly funded schooling of the past in India was narrow and extremely exclusive. These schools were sites where caste Hindus strongly contested the entry/equal treatment of low castes. In fact, she urges that one needs to acknowledge that it was the struggles of the most excluded and stigmatised castes, the ‘untouchables’, that attempted to make these spaces more egalitarian. Her paper makes an important contribution which conveys the point that one should not get trapped in binaries of either/or while examining social reality. For instance, in the debate between the relative superiority of public versus private schools, one should not unreflectively embrace one and discard the other but reflect, for instance, on, ‘whether the public really adheres to the basic principles of “public schooling”, where all students have equal access and are treated alike’. More importantly, her paper is an important contribution to the histories of marginal people’s struggle for access to education which has not been adequately highlighted within the dominant narrative on education.

Nitika Bose’s article, ‘Growing Up Poor, Early Family Life and Education’, takes the reader through the agony of experiencing childhood in a financially constrained, socially condemned and psychologically insecure environment. She talks of children whose lives are full of daily struggles, hardships and humiliation, not just at home but the school as well. Bose contends that attempts to examine academic performances of children suffer from insufficient attention being paid to ways in which their home and early socialisation experiences impact their career choices and life decisions.

Using insights from works of Berger, Cooley and Bourdieu, Bose tries to study ways in which children’s identities are developed in disadvantageous intersectional registers of caste, class and gender. Bose uses the method of narrative inquiry, whereby she carefully selects nine participants and designs interview schedules to evoke insightful responses from them.

These shared voices of lived experiences indicate the economic, social and emotional challenges faced by students, all of whom came from financially constrained backgrounds. The participants recounted tales of suffering and humiliation experienced in schools which were integrally linked to their marginalised social positions thereby creating a home-school continuum, leading to a double disadvantage. The findings reveal ways in which the economic and cultural location of students determines their relationship with family members, community of friends and relatives, and later on their choice of courses and career.

In a similar vein, Gobinda Pal’s paper, ‘School-readiness Among Underprivileged: The Neglected Dimension’, not only underscores the value of pre-school education (PSE) in a child’s development, including academic growth but also underscores the need for quality inputs. The paper uses data collected from a sample survey covering nearly 4,800 households and over 200 anganwadi centres (AWCs) spread across 192 villages in three sample states—Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The paper reiterates the known but neglected fact that restricted access and poor quality of inputs at the pre-school level will ensure continued lack of school preparedness for a large proportion of underprivileged children. It poses faith in the existing system, provided all the loopholes are plugged. The paper calls for increasing efficiency of the largest public pre-school system through the professional development of service providers and setting up monitoring mechanisms to ensure school readiness of underprivileged children. It reminds us that provision of education to all sections of society irrespective of gender, caste, class, religion, region, etc., should abide by the principles of equity and social justice rather than be conceived narrowly and delivered shoddily.

Any discussion of identity, diversity, inequality and schooling is never complete without a discussion and reflection on language and its politics. In a linguistically diverse country like India, thousands of languages are spoken, but they do not share equal status or accessibility in schools as compared to the dominant language of the state in general and English in particular. Rajasekaran and Kumar’s paper, ‘How Do Multilingual Children Experience English Language Acquisition in an Urban Indian School?’, examines the policies followed in schools which focus on learning of a single language. The paper is based on an English medium school in Mumbai where children from diverse linguistic backgrounds study and it builds a case for a multilingual school environment. For instance, the paper categorically proposes code-mixing and code-switching as being beneficial to language learning. The authors recommend that schools must encourage the use of multiple languages. It further affirms the need to view multilingualism as a strength rather than as an irritant.

Importantly, the paper also argues for building up a multilingual ecology in a school’s learning environment as that would also reflect the multilingual nature of our society. This is because schools are not just sites for formal learning but also institutions of socialisation. The recognition of each student’s identity conveys an acceptance of the child in the socio-political and economic structure of the school, causing his/her affective filters to be eased, allowing for more active participation and engagement in developing both conversational fluency and academic proficiency in multiple languages.

In the Classics with Commentary section, Nidhi Gulati explains the importance of Jacques Ranciere’s work, the famous French philosopher who made important contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of education and aesthetics in the late 20th century. The essence of his work centres on the voice of the disadvantaged, their political subjectification and reworking of politics. Gulati navigates through his complex texts and facilitates our understanding of his ideas such as democratic equality, equality of intelligence, child as a political figure, the difference between politics and policing, etc.

The books reviewed in this issue address diverse themes, ranging from educational policies to teachers to multilingualism. Gunjan Sharma’s review of Jyoti Raina’s book, Elementary Education in India: Policy Shifts, Issues and Challenges, informs the reader of the manner in which the book engages with questions such as, how the goals of public education are being redefined in contemporary times, how the future of public education is being framed, the meanings that social justice and equity have acquired in public policy in education and how perhaps democratic spaces for action in education can be reimagined and reclaimed, etc.

Bindu Ramdas Thirumalai’s review of S. Giridhar’s Ordinary People, Extraordinary Teachers: The Heroes of Real India reiterates the need to acknowledge the distinctive context in which government school teachers work in rural India. Since these schools often work in difficult terrains and cater to the needs of most disadvantaged communities of the country and yet receive flak for being irresponsible and unaccountable, the need for such a work can hardly be underscored. The book describes the daily lives of over 100 educators spanning headteachers and teachers, working in rural government-run schools in the three states of Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

Shreesh Chaudhary’s review of David Singleton et al.’s book, Current Multilingualism: A New Dispensation, provides sharp insights on several issues related to multilingualism, related essentially to the spread of English in Europe. The book addresses the emergent global and local patterns of multilingual use and acquisition across the world and explores the major trends that characterise today’s multilingualism.

Hem Borker in her Endnote, ‘Journey from a Madrasa Student to Teacher: An Ethnographic Portrait’ an ethnographic portrait of a Muslim girl, schooled and now teaching in madrasa Jamia Tul Mominat, a residential girls’ madrasa in Delhi. In this note, Hem questions the binaries of subordination and empowerment that are often applied in understanding women’s participation in Islamic education. She underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of madrasa education on Muslim girls’ lives. She highlights the tensions emanating from varying opportunities that madrasa education brings in its wake, and the manner in which the contradiction between educational aspirations and familial expectations plays out in women’s lives.